


A Mile In Another's Shoes

by flawedamythyst



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-17
Updated: 2006-10-17
Packaged: 2018-10-16 08:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10567332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Sam swaps bodies with a little girl.





	

One minute he was lying on a bed in yet another motel room, watching Dean clean the guns and wondering if he could be bothered to sharpen the knives, the next he was sitting on a sofa in a strange lounge. It was as quick as that – no swirling vortex, no flashing lights, not even a strange feeling in his stomach to mark the change. He jumped up in surprise, and was shocked to find himself at less than half his usual height. He glanced down at himself and realised he was wearing a dress. A pink dress. He was wearing a pink dress with little flowers on it, and what appeared to be the body of a little girl.

“Who am I?” he said, and was shocked to hear an almost uncomfortably high pitched voice in replacement of his usual baritone. His hand automatically leapt to his throat. His hand! It was so small!

“I don't know,” came a bored reply, “What game are you playing today? Are you a puppy? A princess? An Olsen twin?”

Sam tore himself away from examining his hands and looked up. The answer had come from a girl who'd been sitting next to him on the sofa. Sam guessed she might be about twelve, but then he’d never been very good at telling how old children were. She wasn't looking at him though; her attention was fixed firmly on the television.

Sam took a deep breath and began to run through the mental checklist he used when something weird happened.

 _Is it a dream?_ He asked himself. He looked around. It didn't look like a dream. He didn't recognise either the girl or the sitting room, but it seemed pretty real.

 _Is there anything obviously evil nearby?_ Apart from the girl, who was watching the television and ignoring him, there was no one else around. He walked out the door into a narrow hallway and heard whistling coming from open door to his left. He peeked around the doorway and watched a middle-aged woman stirring a pot on the stove. After a moment she looked up at him and smiled.

“Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes, OK, honey?” she said. Sam nodded a little numbly and backed away. So, nothing evil, seemingly just a normal family, so far.

Next on the checklist; _Is Dean anywhere around?_

He explored the house and found no one else except a tired-looking man sitting in a study upstairs, frowning at what looked like a bill. He didn't look up when Sam hovered in the doorway for a moment and so he left. So, whatever had happened had either not affected Dean or had caused him to be sent somewhere else entirely.

 _Could he contact Dean?_ There was a phone in the hallway downstairs. He punched in Dean's mobile number from memory and listened to it ring with his fingers crossed. He gave a sigh of relief when Dean picked up.

“Hello?” He sounded slightly distracted. Sam could hear a muffled sound in the background – it sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it.

“Dean? It's Sam.”

There was a pause. “Sam? No offence, but you sound like a little girl.”

“I am a little girl,” Sam said, desperately. “I think there's a spell or something going on.”

“You got any proof you're Sam?” said Dean, sounding at least open to the idea. And a little amused.

“Um,” said Sam, glancing up the hall to double check he was still alone. He leant into the receiver and whispered hurriedly, “When we were learning Latin you translated all the lyrics from Metallica's Reload album and then memorised them. You have a scar on your elbow that you pretend you got while hunting a poltergeist, but really happened when you fell off your bike in the fifth grade. You first had sex when you were...”

“Ok, ok, I believe you,” Dean interrupted. “I guess that explains why you started crying for your Mommy ten minutes ago. You and some kid must have done a straight swap.”

A bell rang from in the kitchen.

“Look, I have to go, or her family are going to catch me,” said Sam, “I'll call you again when I can – you need to work out a way to put this right.”

There were footsteps on the stairs.

“Right,” said Dean, “I'll see what I can dig up.”

“Bye,” said Sam, and put the phone down.

“Julie,” came a voice from behind him, “Who were you phoning?” Sam turned to see the father behind him. He smiled up at him in what he hoped was an innocent manner.

“No one,” he said. “I was just playing.”

“You know you're not allowed to play with the phone.”

“Sorry, Daddy,” said Sam.

The man smiled, “Ok, well, don't do it again. You go and wash your hands for dinner now.”

Sam smiled at him and wondered how long he could keep the pretence of being a normal person up, especially when that person was a little girl.

 

+++++++

 

Dean hung up the phone and looked at Sam again. He was still sitting on the bed sniffling, and wiping his nose on his sleeve. At least the all-out sobbing was over. Dean grimaced inwardly. He wondered if this was karma for the thousands of times he'd called Sam a girl as a joke.

“What's your name?” he asked as gently he could.

Sam sniffed again and looked at him with eyes that seemed bigger than Dean had ever seen them.

“Julie,” she said.

“Ok, Julie,” said Dean, “Well, there's been a bit of a mix-up, but I promise that I'm going to sort it out and then you'll back with your Mommy, ok?”

Julie looked at him, not seeming very reassured.

“Are you...are you one of the bad men that Mrs Parker said liked to hurt children?”

 _Oh Jesus_ thought Dean. “No.” he said. Julie didn't look convinced.

“Look,” said Dean, slightly desperately, “Do you believe in magic?”

“Katie said that only stupid people believe in magic,” said Julie.

“Well, Katie's wrong, because I believe in magic, and I'm not a stupid person,” said Dean, trying out a grin on her.

Julie still looked unconvinced.

“Okay. What's happened is that somehow, you and my brother have swapped bodies. I'm going to do everything I can to change you back, but it might take a while, so you're going to have to be good for me, ok?”

Julie looked down at Sam's body as if she hadn't noticed it wasn't her own. She held his hands up and stared at them. “I'm huge!” she exclaimed.

Dean suppressed a snigger and turned to his bag.

“I'm going to look for something that might help us swap you back,” he said, pulling out Dad's journal, the laptop and wondering if any of the books in the Impala's trunk would help. Julie nodded. She looked down at Sam's body again.

“I like this tee-shirt,” she said, pulling at it, “It has a pony on it.”

Dean laughed. “I think it's meant to be a greyhound, actually,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, looking at the picture again with a slight frown.

Dean turned on the computer and flipped through the Journal as it booted up. There was nothing, but Dean hadn't really expected it.

“What's your name?” said Julie.

“Dean,” he replied, pulling up Sam's Favourites menu and looking for a site that might help. There was silence for a few minutes and then a restless shifting from behind him.

“I'm hungry,” whined Julie. “My Mommy was making spaghetti bolognaise.” Sam's voice was beginning to sound tearful again. Dean sighed and glanced at his watch. The McDonald's down the road should still be open.

“Ok,” he said, “I'll go and get us some food. Do you like McDonald's?”

She practically bounced on the bed. “My Dad never lets us have McDonald's!” Her eyes were shining, “Can I have a Happy Meal?”

Ten minutes later, she was happily playing with the cheap plastic toy that had come with her meal. Dean shook his head at the bizarre sight in front of him. Sam was going to be horrified that Dean had fed him a Happy Meal. Dean smirked at the thought of Sam getting worked up over his healthy-eating kick and settled down to concentrate on getting his brother back.

 

++++++++++

 

Sam managed to get through dinner without saying anything. He didn't really need to – Julie's sister, Katie, and her Dad spent most of the meal having a long and reasonably loud negotiation about Katie's bedtime. Predictably, it ended with Katie flouncing from the room angrily shouting, 'I hate you!'

Sam went upstairs after dinner and into the room he assumed was Julie's – the one that Katie hadn't shut herself in and started playing loud music from. He looked around it. It was very pink. He was beginning to get a creeping sensation that he was going to have an awful lot of pink in his life until he got back into his own body. He looked at her bookshelf, but gave up, discouraged, when he realised that all her books either had the word 'pony' in the title, or were from The Baby-sitters Club series. He looked at the stuff on her desk and noticed a list of words with 'Learn for tomorrow' written in careful, round handwriting above, as well as a small stack of drawings. He poked around. Fairies featured heavily. Eventually he just lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, relishing the unusual comfort of not having to hang his feet off the end.

 

++++++++++

 

Dean was still researching when Sam phoned again, after midnight, but he wasn't having much luck. Julie had fallen asleep three hours earlier, curling Sam's body up into a tiny ball and sticking his thumb into his mouth. Dean had been remarkably restrained and only taken one photo for later blackmail purposes.

He picked up the phone and said, “You took your time,” in lieu of a greeting.

“I had to wait till everyone was asleep,” whispered the little girl voice that was now Sam's. “Please, _please_ tell me you've found something.”

“Sorry, man,” said Dean, “There's nothing yet. I think I'm going to have to pop into the Library tomorrow, see if there's a curse or a spirit in this motel or something.”

“Tomorrow?” Sam sounded a little panicked, “Dean, that means I'll have to go to school!”

Dean shrugged, even though Sam couldn't see it. “You could leave and come here instead, help me work this out.”

There was silence from the other end, and then a frustrated sigh that sounded too old for the voice that followed it.

“Dean, these are good people. I can't put them through the hell of a missing kid.”

There was a silence.

“Is there...do you know anyone who might know about this sort of thing?” said Sam.

“Not really,” admitted Dean. There was another pause. He could almost picture Sam rubbing his hand over his eyes, except that Sam's body was sleeping softly behind him and he had no idea whose face Sam's worried look was on at the moment.

“Look, if I haven't found anything by tomorrow lunchtime at the Library, I'll start phoning people,” said Dean, trying his best to sound upbeat and reassuring, “Someone might know something.”  


“Right,” said Sam, sounding more confident. “I'll...I'll see if there's anything here which might give us a clue.”

“Okay,” agreed Dean. “Oh, and Sam?” he paused, “Make sure you're a good girl for your teachers. Maybe take them an apple?”

“Jerk,” hissed Sam and hung up.

 

++++++++++

 

Sam had managed to find some trousers in Julie's wardrobe that morning, but they were still heavy on the pink. He'd been holding her hairbrush and looking at the reflection in the mirror, wondering what to do with all her long hair when her mother had come in. She seemed surprised to see him dressed.

“Gosh, you're up early this morning,” she said. She'd taken the hairbrush from his hand, sat him down on the bed and carefully brushed the hair and then tied it back in a neat braid. The whole experience had been one of the most surreal things Sam had ever known, which was saying a lot. They'd gone downstairs and she'd fixed him breakfast, just like Dean used to when he was a kid. Katie had come in at some stage, worrying about lost homework, and Julie's father had grabbed some toast, kissed all three of them, allowed his wife to readjust his tie and then left for work. Sam began to wonder if this was some kind of weird wish-fulfilment-gone-wrong deal, but then he realised that, although he'd wished for a normal life, he'd never considered being a 22-yr-old man stuck in a 7-yr-old girl's body 'normal'.

 

At school, he got told off twice for letting his attention drift while the teacher explained things he couldn't remember not knowing, and once for not showing his working out when he completed the math problems.

“How will I know that you're working them out the correct way?” she asked him. He looked at the simple multiplication sums on the page, and wondered what the wrong way was.

“Sorry,” he said, trying to utilise all his cute-little-girl appeal. She'd smiled at him and let it go.  


Breaktime, however, had brought new lows. When he'd arrived at school, a girl with a blonde ponytail had run straight over and started talking to him very fast about something he wasn't really sure he understood, but which was clearly a big deal. He'd managed to fake sufficient enthusiasm to avoid suspicion, but then the teacher had arrived and he found himself being dragged into the seat next to the girl, who was called Carly.

When the bell rang for recess, he followed her outside and looked around the playground. There were some benches over to the side, so he turned and started to head for them.

“Julie! Come on,” said Carly, “We're going to play fairies.”

“Uh,” said Sam, uncomfortably, “I'm not really in the mood.”

Carly's eyes opened very, very widely. “What? You love playing fairies! Besides, we can't play without you – you're the Queen Fairy!”

 _Of course I am,_ thought Sam bitterly to himself. He smiled at Carly, perhaps a little wanly, and followed her lead. As he sat on a rock ('It's your magic throne!') and held a stick in his hand, ('That's your wand! You can make the evil monsters go away with that.') Sam prayed to every deity he'd ever heard of that Dean never found out about this.

 

++++++++

 

Dean was having problems of his own. Researching in a Library wasn't very easy with a girl stuck in his brother's body. She got bored almost immediately, and started to kick the desk leg, which made a man reading a book further down give them both a very evil glare.

“Stop it,” hissed Dean.

“I'm bored!” she whined in a tone that made Dean want to gut her right there with the knife in his boot.

He tried very hard to remember what Dad used to entertain Sam with when he was researching. Inspiration struck, and he resolutely dragged Julie out of the Library and across the road into a stationary store, where he bought her some paper and a pack of colouring pencils. Glittery ones, because she begged and looked at him with Sam's best puppy eyes, and Dean hadn't been able to resist that for years. Back in the Library, he was able to concentrate on finding that there was absolutely nothing shady or strange at the motel, nor had there ever been. He'd run the EMF meter around last night after the phonecall with Sam and found nothing, so he guessed there was nothing to find. He sighed and looked over at Julie who was completely absorbed in her drawing. What the hell was he supposed do now? After a moment she looked up and noticed him staring. She gave a big, happy smile that he hadn't seen on Sam's face for a long time and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Look!” she said, excitedly, “I drew me as a fairy!”

Dean looked at the picture. It was a very bright picture of a brown-haired girl with a pink, bell-skirted dress and rainbow wings.

“Very good,” he said.

“And then,” she said, “I drew you as a fairy!” She showed him another picture. It showed a brown-haired man wearing some kind of strange Peter Pan-like green outfit, and with huge red wings.

“That's, uh, great,” he said, slightly weakly, adopting a quick grin, and hoping like hell that Sam never saw it. He looked up to see the man opposite giving Julie a very strange look. Dean dropped the smile and glared at him till he looked back down at his books.

“Do you want to get some lunch?” he said to Julie.

She looked up. “Can we have McDonald's again?” she said happily.

“Sure,” said Dean, grinning genuinely this time. When Sam found out what he'd been letting her feed his body while he was away, he was gonna hit the roof.

 

He settled Julie on a park bench with another Happy Meal, and then pulled out his phone and started calling round. The first four people he called weren't able to help. Most of them laughed when he explained what had happened, which he supposed was reasonable, but irritating nonetheless. He called Missouri next, and she picked up after the first ring.

“I've been waiting for you to call,” she said in her annoying way. “Your brother's in trouble, and you need to work fast to save him.”

“What do you mean?” said Dean, watching Julie to make sure she didn't wander off with Sam's body. She was still playing with her Happy Meal toy.

“You only have twenty-four hours to reverse this,” said Missouri. “After that, it's permanent.”  


Dean swore. What time had it been when Sam suddenly turned to where he was cleaning his guns and burst into tears, wailing that he wanted to go home? Was it 6.30? 7? He checked his watch. It was 1.35. He had around 5 hours.

“What do I have to do?” he asked.

“You'll have to find the woman who's done this and then get her, Sam and that poor girl in Sam's body in the same place and the same time. You should be able to work it out from there.”

“The woman who did this?” said Dean, “Who's that?”

“Think, Dean,” said Missouri and he could hear her smile down the phone. “Witches work in threes, right?” There was a click. Apparently, that was all he was getting.

 _Witches_ , he thought, _witches..._ There'd been witches in Montana last month. They'd been sacrificing drifters in the hopes of immortality – Sam and he had killed two, when it became clear that their spells had left them less-than-human and on the wrong side of evil. There must have been a third. He snorted, this was impossible. If only he had a name, or knew what she looked like, even. He thought hard. The two they'd killed had been an old woman and her middle-aged daughter – the crone and the mother. He must be looking for the maiden then – probably a girl about his age. She'd have to have something of Sam's to make the spell stick. He racked his brains. Where had they been that she could have had access to Sam?

Yesterday had been a pretty normal day – they'd had breakfast in a diner by the last motel they'd stayed at, then packed up and driven west towards Portland, where they'd heard rumours of teenagers who went missing and then returned home a week later and killed their families. They'd stopped here, some time in the late afternoon, booked in and gone to get dinner. They'd gone to the restaurant a few blocks down from the motel – Sam had taken one look at the McDonald's and headed away before Dean could say anything. There'd been a new waitress in the restaurant, he remembered suddenly. She'd dropped a tray when they'd walked in, then spent the evening clumsily flirting with Sam in a way that made him very uncomfortable and caused her manager to throw her some very irritated looks. . He remembered her combing her fingers through his hair, commenting on its softness...it must have been her. She'd taken his hair and cast the spell not even an hour later. Dean's eyes narrowed, and he walked back over to Julie.

“Can I go on the swings?” she asked.

“No,” he said, shortly. Her face fell. “You're too big,” he said, hurriedly, “They're made for children, not giants like my brother. Besides, we have to go talk to someone who might be able to help get you back home.”

She brightened slightly when he said that, but still looked longingly over her shoulder at the play park when they left.

“Okay,” she said, brightening slightly. Dean started walking away and heard Julie skip with Sam's ridiculously long legs to catch up. Next thing he knew, she had grabbed his hand and started swinging it, giving him an enormous grin. “Can we have a Happy Meal for tea, too?”

“Uh, maybe!” panicked Dean, hurriedly trying to extract his hand from Julie’s vice-like grip, and glancing around to make sure nobody was noticing.

“I like you!” she said, beaming down at him, and started singing tunelessly, still refusing to let go of Dean. Dean quickened his pace. This had to be over. Soon.

 

The restaurant was open, but mainly empty now that lunchtime was over. Dean took Julie with him, but made her promise not to say anything while they were in there. He questioned the manager about the waitress as subtly as he could when he was in such a hurry, but he only got a few answers, and too many suspicious looks, so he left the restaurant and went to sit out in the car.

The manager had confirmed that she was new, and told him her name was Heather. He hadn't said when her next shift was, but his eyes had flicked to the clock when Dean had asked, so he was banking on the fact that she was starting soon. He just had to sit and wait.

“Dean,” said Julie, quietly, after a few minutes.

“Yeah?” he said, still keep an eye open for Heather.

“When am I going to get to go home?” she said.

He turned to look at her. She looked tired, sad and a little lost. On his brother's face, the expression made something inside Dean clench like a fist.

“Tonight,” he said, putting as much confidence into his voice as possible to reassure her. “Hopefully we'll have you back in time for dinner.” She smiled at that, and he turned back to the restaurant, just in time to see Heather head inside.

“Stay here,” he said as he leapt out the car after her.

He caught the arm of her coat just inside the door, and saw the manager coming towards them out of the corner of his eye.

“You're coming with me,” he said. Heather turned and looked at him, a little frightened, but mainly angry.

“Why? So you can kill me as well?” she spat, her eyes flashing.

“No, so you can fix whatever the fuck you've done to my brother,” he growled. He pushed her back against the wall.

She laughed. The bitch had the temerity to laugh. Her eyes looked at the clock.

“Not much time left,” she said. “Do you really think I'm going to help you?”

The manager was standing right next to him now, saying something about, 'calm down' and 'I'll call the police.' Dean barely even heard him. He pulled the knife out of his pocket and held it against Heather's stomach, trying to hide it from the crowd with his body.

“You're going to help me set this all right, or you're going to join your friends.”

“They weren't my friends,” she spat, eyes darkening with hate, “They were my family.”

He needed to move before the police arrived. He grabbed her and bundled her out of the restaurant, shaking off the manager's feeble attempt to stop him. He pulled the passenger door of the Impala open.

“Julie, get in the back,” he said, not taking off his eyes off the witch for a second. Sam's long body unfolded from the passenger seat and he didn't need to look to know Julie was looking scared. Heather looked at Sam and laughed.

“I didn't really think it would work so well,” she marvelled. Dean thrust her into the front seat, pulled the handcuffs out of the glove box and cuffed her to the seat. He slammed the door on her and turned to see Julie looking at him with fear in her eyes.

“Get in the back, Julie,” he said. “We need to get out of here before the police arrive.”

“The police?” she looked at Heather and then wide-eyed at Dean. “What did you do that for?”

“She's the one that did this to you and my brother. We need to get her to undo it.”

Julie looked at Heather again. “Her?” she said. “But...”

“She's a witch,” said Dean, “An evil witch, like in the stories. Get in the car.”

Julie nodded, shakily, and got carefully into the back. Dean got into the driving seat and took off as fast as he could.

“Right,” he said, once they were on the road, “Where is it?”

“Where's what?” said Heather, testily, pulling at the cuffs. They were strong iron though, and Dean was sure she wouldn't be able to magic her way out of them.

“Your book!” he said, “Your God-damned spell book. I know what you people are like – you'll have this spell all neatly written out, and the counterspell next to it. Where the hell is it?”

“I'm not telling you!” she spat. she spat. He reached over and backhanded her around the face. There was a frightened gasp from behind him. Dean swore inwardly. He had to remember there was a little girl in the back.

“You'll tell me, or I'll put you in an iron box and sink you into the Pacific,” he said.

There was silence for a moment. There was silence for a moment. “Right,” said Dean, looking over his shoulder as if to turn the car around “Pacific it is.” He slowed the car and made to turn the wheel.  


“No!” said Heather, “I'll...I'll tell you. It's at my apartment.”

“Address?” said Dean. She told him and he headed in that direction, putting his foot down. He glanced at the time – he still had over four hours. He could do this.

 

++++++++++

 

Sam was sitting on Julie's bed, wondering if he was bored enough to attempt reading one of her books when there was a rattle of stones falling against the window. He leapt up, still not entirely used to how much more energy he had in Julie's body, and ran over to the window. Outside, he could see a shadowy figure looking up at his room, and the distinctive silhouette of the Impala. He waved at Dean to say he'd be right out, and then went downstairs. Julie's mother was cooking again, and humming as she did so. He crept past the kitchen door to the front door, opened it as quietly as he could, and then shut it gently behind him.

Dean was leaning against the Impala. When Sam came out, he straightened up and looked him up and down. He smirked.

“Man, you have dimples!” he said. “That's so cute.”

Sam scowled at him. “You better have a way to fix this,” he said.

Dean nodded. “It was a witch – the third member of that coven we broke up in Montana. I've got her and her spellbook, and...” he looked at his watch, “we have about 2 hours to reverse it before it's permanent.”

“Permanent?” said Sam, a cold shiver of panic running down his spine, “Then let's get this done.”

Dean nodded and opened the driver's door. “I figure we go find somewhere quiet out of town to do it.”

Sam nodded, “Right.” He opened the rear car door, struggling slightly with the unexpected weight of it. He could feel Dean smirking behind him. He studiously ignored him and got in the back, sitting next to Julie-in-his-body and that had to be one of the weirdest things in a life of weird things – looking at his body from an outsider's perspective. Was he really that tall? He'd just thought everybody else was short. Did his hair really look like that? No wonder Dean was always mocking him about it.

His body was staring at him with a wide-eyed look. Sam tried out a smile and held his hand out.  


“Hi, I'm Sam,” he said. “You must be Julie.”

She looked at his hand and then back at his face.

“I'm tiny,” she said, and if Sam thought seeing his body was weird, hearing someone else use his voice was even stranger. She sounded dangerously close to freaking out, so he dropped his hand and tried out a reassuring smile. He wasn't sure it worked as well on the face of a small girl as it did on his face. It certainly didn't seem to have much effect on Julie.

“Dee-ean,” she whined, and took a shuddering breath, as if she was going to start crying.

Dean glanced in the rear-view mirror.

“It's ok,” he said in his best 'reassuring-small-child-voice', “We're just going to go out into the woods to find somewhere quiet, and then Heather's going to say a few words and then you'll be able to go home.”

Julie nodded, but Sam was distracted by the woman in the passenger seat, who was watching him and Julie with an air of achievement.

“Wait,” he said, “she's doing the spell? You're trusting her to do a spell on me and not make things worse?”

“Don't worry, Sammy,” said Dean, “I've read the spell over – if she says or does anything that's not in it, I'll put a bullet through her brain.”

Sam saw Heather flinch.

“Right,” he said, not entirely convinced.

 

++++++++

 

Dean pulled off into a small picnic area and parked the car. It was deserted, so he pulled his gun out, uncuffed the witch and got out of the car.

“Alright,” he said to Heather, “Get out.”

She climbed reluctantly from the car. Sam and Julie were also getting out, and Dean kept his attention on Heather, despite the temptation to watch Sam and snigger as he climbed down from the car. He kept the gun trained on Heather, not trusting her for a moment as she pulled her spellbook out, and carefully began to draw the complicated magic circle on the tarmac. When she'd finished, she directed Sam and Julie to stand at specific points, and then picked up the spell book.

“Remember,” said Dean, “Stick to the right spell.” He shifted the gun to his other hand in an unsubtle gesture. She glared at him with hatred and then started to read aloud the Etruscan phrases which made up the spell. After a few moments, a glowing silver mist rose up from the edges of the circle. Julie made a faint, scared noise. Dean resisted the urge to say something comforting to her, in case it messed the spell up. The chanting continued, and Dean tried to keep track of it, to make sure she wasn't pulling a fast one. The mist began to coalesce around Sam and Julie, and Heather sped up the rate of her recitation.

Dean suddenly frowned. Hadn't she already said that bit? He cocked the gun, trying to work out if she was sticking to the script, and Heather threw him a sudden glance, and then spoke the final words in a loud, triumphant voice.

Dean found himself suddenly looking at the scene from a different angle, considerably lower than he was used to, and on the other side of the circle. He swore, and turned towards Heather.

“You treacherous bitch!” he yelled. His voice was tiny and high-pitched, and he realised whose body he was in. Julie's. Heather gave him a very confused look, and then looked down at herself.

“Fuck,” she said. Dean narrowed Julie's eyes and looked round at his body and Sam's. His was still standing holding the gun, but it looked like it was about to start crying. That must be Julie. Sam's was...running off into the woods, clutching the spell book.

“After her!” shrieked Dean, and set off in pursuit. Heather's body, which he realised must contain Sam, followed him, and then overtook him very swiftly, as Julie's little legs failed to keep up with Heather's adult ones. Sam ran straight at his body, and tackled it from behind. They both went down and landed with a thump on the forest floor, and the spell book went flying. Sam pulled Heather over, and aimed a punch at his own face, but she blocked it at the last minute, and tried to throw Sam off. Sam came worryingly close to falling back, before shoving his elbow into his stomach. Heather's body just wasn't strong enough to be to wrestle Sam's into submission. Dean looked around, wondering what he could do to help while he was in Julie's body. He found a broken branch on the ground, and hit Heather with it as hard as he could. She swore and it gave Sam the instant he needed to get her in a hold. She struggled against it for a bit, but she wasn't going anywhere.

“Right,” said Dean, retrieving the spell book. “Let's try this again.”

Sam looked up at him, “You're kidding, right? You're going to let her do another spell?”

Dean gave him his usual smirk, but from Sam's expression he could tell it looked a little strange on Julie's face.

“She won't be doing it,” he said. “We need the witch to do it, and at the moment, you're the witch.”

Sam glanced briefly at Heather's body and then smiled. “That seems like a much better plan.”

 

++++++++++

 

Sam read the foreign words slowly and carefully, making sure he didn't miss anything out. Before he started the final verse, he glanced up. The faint silver mist was forming again, around Heather-in-his-body, who was sitting on the ground, hand cuffed, Julie-in-Dean's-body, who was holding a gun very carefully, so that Dean could keep Heather under control once they were all back in the correct bodies and around Dean-in-Julie's-body, who was watching Heather very carefully with his 'don't mess with me, bitch' face, which looked frankly ridiculous and a little adorable on Julie's face. Sam took a deep breath, recited the last part of the spell and then closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was sitting on the ground, back in his body. Dean brought the gun up and pointed it at Heather.

“Put the book down,” he said. “And step away.” Heather scowled at him, but did as he said.

Julie was looking down at herself. “I'm me! I'm me again!” she said, excitedly. “Can I go home now?”

“Sure,” said Dean, not taking his eyes off Heather.

Julie clapped her hands and shrieked with joy.

They burnt Heather's spellbook, which made her cry out in pain, then drove her back to town, at Sam's insistence.

“We can't just leave her in the middle of nowhere, Dean,” said Sam, and Dean had given in. They left her outside the restaurant where she worked, looking lost. Sam had checked the journal as they drove, and confirmed that without her spellbook, she wouldn't be a risk. They drove Julie back to her house, but Dean drove straight past when he saw red flashing lights outside. He parked round the corner, and they walked her back home.

Dean rang the doorbell, and Julie's mom answered, and swept her daughter into a tight, frightened hug.  


“We found her wandering a couple of streets over,” said Sam, flashing his most innocent look, and Julie's Dad thanked them, very earnestly. Julie gave Sam a shy smile as they left, and Dean a sudden, fierce hug that made the policeman give him a suspicious look.

“Thank God that’s over,” said Sam, as they got back into the Impala. “Ugh, I’m _still_ wearing this tee-shirt?” He sniffed it and wrinkled his nose, then leant down and picked up a couple of Happy Meal boxes up from the footwell, tossing them into the back. “Man, you really went to town whilst I was away,” he grinned. Dean put the car in gear.

“ _I_ didn’t.” he said, smirking.

 

They stopped briefly at the motel to get their stuff, then set off in the direction of Portland, hoping to get a couple of hours closer before they found somewhere to sleep, in order to make up for lost time. Dean was also worried that the incident at the restaurant may have attracted the attention of the cops, and wanted to get out of town in case they came looking, but he didn't mention that to Sam.

 

In Portland, Dean waited until they'd been in the library for a few hours, researching psychopathic teenagers from the local area. Sam gave a yawn, still tired from the long drive, and Dean saw his chance.

“Hey, man, if you're bored,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “you can always play with these and I can carry on with the research.” He held out Julie's Mcdonald's toys. Sam gave them a puzzled look.

“Hey,” shrugged Dean, “they were Julie's favourite.” Sam gave him an evil glare of death.

 

In Nevada, on the way to the next job, Dean found a large, pink T shirt in a charity store. He bought it and left it on Sam's bed while he was in the shower the next day. This time the glare was accompanied by clenched fists. Dean just smirked.

 

They were just outside of Provo, Utah when Dean got the pictures of Sam sucking his thumb developed and showed them to a waitress at a rest-stop. Sam had gritted his teeth and gone back to the car.

 

They were a few miles from the Colorado border when Sam got his chance at revenge. He was hunting through Dean's bag, trying to find a spare shirt because all his had become covered in ectoplasm, when he drew out a drawing.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?” came Dean's muffled voice from the bathroom, where he was trying to get the ectoplasm out of his hair before it set.

“Do you want me to buy you a wand?”

There was silence and then Dean appeared in the doorway, shirtless and with his hair wrapped in a towel.

“What?” he said, and Sam held up the picture of Dean, complete with fairy outfit and wings. Dean flushed and went back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

 

Sam did buy him a wand, and a tiara. Dean threw them both at Sam's head while Sam was laughing too hard to duck. The wand left a bruise which lingered for a few days, but Sam decided it was worth it. Dean didn't make any more girl jokes after that.


End file.
